OYSTEE BOTTOMS OF MISSISSIPPI EAST OF BILOXI. 39 



The section of this report deahng with the barren bottoms, together 

 with the chart, shoiikl be consulted for the location of areas on which 

 experiments in oyster culture may be undertaken with some assurance 

 of success. The regions off Deer Island and east of Grand Batture 

 Shoal are probably the most promising. On each of these the depth 

 and the character of the bottom are such that the beds could be 

 worked with light dredges, and both appear to be adapted to the 

 growth of oysters from seed. The work should be conducted as an 

 experiment in the beginning, and not on a scale so large as to entail 

 heavy loss if some of the conditions should unexpectedly prove 

 unfavorable. 



SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 



The following pages briefly review the conditions developed by the 

 survey, with the deductions and recommendations based on them. 



1. The survey included that part of Mississippi Sound lying be- 

 tween the Alabama-Mississippi boundary and Biloxi, being practically 

 restricted to the County of Jackson, although including a smaU part 

 of Harrison County in the vicinity of Biloxi. 



2. Within these limits there are embraced natural beds aggregating 

 about 1,708 acres, of which 475 acres, classed as bearing dense and 

 scattering growth, bear oysters of marketable size in sufficient quanti- 

 ties to support a fishery. On part of this area, however, the quality 

 was too poor at the time of the survey to permit the oysters to find 

 a ready market at a remunerative price. On the remaining 1,233 

 acres large oysters are too scattered to be taken commercially with 

 profit. 



3. It is estimated that in February and March, 1911, these beds 

 contained not less than about 120,000 bushels of oysters over 3 inches 

 long and about 375,000 bushels of smaller ones, a total of not less than 

 495,000 bushels of oysters of aU sizes. Of this quantity, about 80,000 

 bushels of the larger size and an equal quantity of the smaller ones 

 were on those parts of the beds in which the former were present in 

 sufficient density of growth to warrant a commercial fishery. The 

 bushel measure used was the standard employed in the State, and as 

 the o^^sters were cuUed into singles and doubles and compactly ar- 

 ranged, the measure contained a larger number of oysters than is 

 usual in commercial practice. The data furnished is therefore con- 

 servative as to the content of the beds. 



4. The quantity of small oysters on the beds as a whole is largely 

 in excess of the quantity of large ones, although on the denser areas 

 of market oysters in Biloxi Bay this is not the case. As, however, it 

 requires a larger number of small oysters to produce a given quantity, 

 the small oysters are nearly everywhere numerically equal to or in 

 excess of the large ones, the only exceptions being on some of the 



